


Into the Earth

by childhoodlight



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 08:15:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7883569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/childhoodlight/pseuds/childhoodlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abby and Raven throughout the first two seasons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the Earth

**Author's Note:**

> This is from Abby's point of view and should be following the storylines of season one and two of the show itself, save for a few small changes. I love Abby's and Raven's dynamic so much and just... couldn't help myself. Don't hesitate to leave feedback.

 

 

 

 

xxx

 

 

It is now a distant memory, that moment you were up in space and the air was becoming too thin and you tried, you tried, you tried so hard to save your only daughter. 

Instead, you sentenced her to her own death.

 

xxx

 

The one that saves you comes from the most unexpected of places, not from the harsh defiant stares of Marcus and not from the glowing memories of Jake.

The one that grounds you to the vacuum that is space itself, the one that makes some kind of gravity finally settle on your spine is a girl with dark eyes and sassy replies.

She put both your feet on the ground so you could breathe real air and feel the sun on your aging skin.

 

xxx

  

There's no time to talk or discuss or simply be, because too much is going down.

She thought you were dead but you're not and her eyes are the first real welcome.

and you're just fighting to stay alive 

all you want to do

is get one moment of peace.

One moment.

  

**this is how it goes:**

 

The bullet needs to go out. It’s touching her spine, not a gentle caress, not a whisper of a touch, but a bone-breaking steely hold on her basic motor functions. She's living in the darker shades of life.  

There's this young boy in the room, some kind of innocence still clinging to his face, innocence that was never there in hers. They are or were lovers and he's a hovering presence as you hesitate to tell Raven the bad news. You don't know how to handle him, how to handle this. 

"I know that face, just spit it out Abby," Raven breathes.

And you spit it out, let the words hang in-between you as the young woman breathes and breathes and breathes, skin glistening of sweat.

A tear escapes her right eye and rolls down onto the ground. Gravity, gravity, she needs legs because of its powers. 

Raven's determination to live is the strongest thing you have ever seen.

 

xxx

 

Sometime in-between this conversation and the surgery, Finn leaves. You're about to follow him, let her rest and prepare as best she can, but her small voice carries through the room. 

"Abby." 

You stop and turn around, immediately walking back to where she is lying on the table, sweaty and dirty. 

"What, Raven?" 

She's pushing through the pain, letting vulnerability shine through her eyes. You fleetingly wonder whether Raven feels it’s too much to let Finn see her like this. You put a hand on her arm and lean closer, looking intently at her face.

Raven's words come out in puffs of air: "Just... one moment. Of... I don't know. Peace." She places her hand atop yours, lifting it and intertwining your fingers, a hint of desperation in her movements. Raven's eyes close.

"All right," you sigh, throat burning, "one moment." You let you other hand rest lightly on the t-shirt covering Raven's stomach, drawing small patterns on her lowest left rib. Feel this, Raven, you think but don't say. Feel this when your blood is on my hands and I'm cutting your flesh and when the nightmares haunt your sleeping mind. 

The moment lasts several minutes and when Raven opens her eyes again, they're glassy.

You bring your intertwined hands to your lips and kiss Raven's knuckles once. 

And the moment has passed.

 

xxx

 

"We're almost ready."

You thought it was true when you said it, face close to the back of her head, a small whisper and the air of your exhale washing down her neck. You thought you were ready, but as the scalpel cuts deeper, you almost puke. You will never be ready, you think, and lets the knife go deeper into her flesh. Her screams drown out the rest of your thoughts. 

 

xxx

 

You remember how your throat burned as you swallowed, fingers on her skin. She can't feel your touch, feels nothing, not until you touch above her knee, and her dark eyes are so incredibly sad. You lean against her, let your wrist casually rest against the skin above her knee. You want to anchor her to something, a faint reminder that you're there. Later, you will realise that even while laying unfeeling on a medical table with tears in her eyes, Raven was the one that anchored you. 

You say that you're going to give them time and leave the room. Not until you're safely outside the tent, does one tear roll down your cheek and surrender to earth. 

 

xxx

 

"You’re wrong, Abby. She stopped being a kid the day you sent her to die."

The impact of your fingers on her cheek is still burning faintly and you look at her, pleadingly. The truth is simple and your heart constricts.  _It's your fault, Abby. Jake and Clarke, both your fault_. And you just fucking hit Raven and anyone else would be angry or scared, but it’s Raven, so the only thing that happens is that she sees through you even easier than before. How come she can read you like this? Like an open book? 

"I just need..." you begin, sighing slowly, but she interrupts you, before you can finish the sentence--

"A moment of peace," she says and it’s beginning to scare you how easily she reads your thoughts. You almost smile, somehow, your face a stranger to how it feels. The similar conversation from earlier echoes in the silence and she's suddenly smirking, pushing the cup further toward you. You take a sip. The liquid is strong, reminding you of sadness burning in your throat, but you're swallowing it. And now you're almost smiling at each other and you don't know what to do, because there's still sadness in her eyes and you just want it gone, gone, gone.

 

xxx

 

Every quarrel with Clarke is built on a dynamic in which her words carry undertones of defiance. You try and you love and want so badly to protect, but Clarke's interpretation of it is different. 

"Clarke, do you read me?" You refuse to give up. You can see Raven sigh in the corner of your eye. "Dammit!" 

"Clarke and Finn know these woods--"

"She left her pack and her tent is in it." 

Raven is calm, voice even, "they'll find shelter."

You look at her. Why is she so fucking calm about this? You try to let it go.

Raven finds some kind of signal and smiles at how clear it is, while you still only hear murmurs and waves of sounds that all blend together. The frustration builds and Raven only continues to frustrate you, explaining it all with words like frequency and cracking encryptions and you can't contain yourself--

"OK, English, Raven, what does that mean?" 

"It means... we'll be able to listen in on Mt. Weather," and Raven gives you a ghost of that winning smirk and your eyes widen. 

Raven smiles while cracking the encryption and you can't stop looking. 

"You did it."

When you think back on it, the difference between how Raven affects you and how Clarke affects you becomes so striking. With Clarke, every sentence, every touch and every action is a struggle to show her love, a love deeper than anything you ever felt. She’s your darling daughter, your baby girl, and she’s out on earth, close to death each day.

With Raven, every sentence, every touch and every action feels like simply breathing.

She isn't your... daughter, you know this, but you can't quite put your finger on exactly what Raven then could be, because she grounds you to earth with a feeling of safety which frightens you to the core. 

 

xxx

 

As you hug your daughter closer you overhear Raven's brief conversation with Finn:

"We all have battle scars, Finn. Suck it up... and build a brace for yours." 

You part from your daughter, and you all begin to walk, Clarke and Finn at a much quicker pace. You fall into step with Raven, without knowing what you're thinking or doing, only feel how Raven's words flow through your body, a feeling of strength filling you. You find the courage to take her hand and stop her. You close your eyes, letting the emotion fill you.

Raven's voice is closer than you expected when she softly asks: "a moment?" 

Your eyes are still closed as you nod your head, "Mhmm." 

You stand still for one second, two seconds, three, seconds, fingers intertwined, four seconds, five seconds, and Raven brings your hands up to her lips, kissing your knuckles once. Your eyes open and Raven smirks and starts to walk, gently tugging you along.

Then, Thelonious, bloodied and exhausted, stumbles out of the woods,

"Leave... or die." 

 

xxx

 

Your mind has been spinning for hours now, discussing and negotiating about what you should or shouldn't do, and the world is too quick.

When Raven starts to physically fight with people in defence of Finn, it doesn't surprise you, not really, and you look at her small form as it manages to bring a full-grown man down by just one, hard punch. Her strength still awes you, her defiance to let anything other than herself and her own will guide her actions. There's no self-pity, just a grumbling acceptance that one has to move forward and make the best out of everything. 

It's still really fucking stupid of her. When you finally have time to go and see her, she's pacing.

You're fuming as you approach her. 

"Abby," she begins and walks to you, desperation in her eyes, "let me out of here, please. It was stupid, I'm sorry--"

"No, I don't wanna hear it."

"He was ready to throw Finn out of the gate." She doesn't back down and you start to wonder:

Did she actually think he was going to be thrown out to the grounders?

"And you think I would let that happen?" You don't want to show her you're a bit hurt because of this, but your surprise hangs between you in the following short silence.

Raven looks worried as she answers, "... I don't know." 

You just continue to look at her, desperately wanting her to remember who you actually are; you’re not some random person of hundreds in this camp, not someone new, or just another chancellor. Raven eventually seems to remember your friendship, the one that flows between you with the smallest of looks and touches, one of few pure things to exist down on the ground.

"No." 

Your voice becomes even lower as you calmly say, eyes focused on hers, "the only way we're gonna make it through this is if we trust each other."

Her answer is a whisper: "I'm trying." Her eyes quickly flicker down to your mouth and your reaction is to instantly look away. 

Silence. You say: "She's free to go." She's surprised, but there's relief in her eyes.

You try to smile at her with your eyes, while still keeping a stern face; you want to make her understand this delicate balance you're always juggling, the one where you're not really Abby, but the harsh chancellor versus the one that will hold her hand and stay in silence and just breathe. 

You feel yourself transition even more into chancellor-mode as you give her a last warning and let her leave.

 

xxx

 

The night has closed in on you and Raven is pleading. 

"Abby... Abby... we have to do something." Her eyes are so big and so full of fear that your heart starts beating faster. No matter how many times she may smile at you in the future, this look she is now giving you, will haunt you.

"No, Raven," is all you can say and she's starting to cry. You feel your own eyes well up as she keeps desperately holding your gaze. After everything she's done for you, and this is how you repay her?  _Trust me, trust me, trust me_ , your own words keep echoing in your head but how the fuck is she supposed to be able to trust you if you're practically the one killing her love? You want to hold her. 

She leaves.

When Clarke kills him, sealing it off with a sweet kiss, you hear her screams as the tears roll down your cheeks.

You keep staring at Clarke, your daughter, this  _woman_ , who just killed him, sweet as a lover's touch in front of hundreds. Clarke, Clarke, what has become of her? You weep and you weep for the lost innocence of your daughter and for the screams of Raven. 

You will leave with the grounders and Raven is still crying and they're taking his body and your head is spinning.

Before leaving, you manage to catch a moment with a crying Raven. You try to take her hand, try to make her look at you, anything, anything. But she shrugs you off, turning around so that her back is to you.

"No peace, Abby," she gives out a small sob, "never." 

Your heart breaks and you know you've been rejected.

But you can't just let her be, because you're  _leaving_ and you don't even know the next time you'll have a moment to yourself with her. 

"Raven," you breathe and step closer to her, touching her shoulder. She doesn't say anything and the night air is cold against your wet cheeks and you curse earth and everything that it is. 

"Raven," you say once again and let your arms come around her, trying to kind of hug her from behind, you guess, and she might fight you off but you have to at least try. You're surprised when instead of pushing you off, she lets your arms envelope her small frame, putting her arms on yours on her abdomen. Your chin ends up resting on her left shoulder and you close your eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Raven, I... I'm--"

"I know, Abby." She breathes it out so silently you almost don't catch it.  

And your fingers intertwine against her abdomen and you breathe in, feeling her living warmth against you.

One moment, two moments, three moments, and you know you have to leave. You bring your hands upwards in front of her, brings them to your lips, don't kiss her knuckles, not now, it doesn't feel right, just rest your lips against the palm of her hand for a micro second. Not a kiss, when her love just died from one, not a kiss when kissing means living and you’re all  _grieving_. You understand it so deeply, when the one you love dies and parts of you die with them. You understand what she's going through even though you have no idea, because this is so different from Jake, maybe it cannot even be compared or likened to Jake, but the pain you feel for her feels so real and so close and similar to when Jake died. You open your eyes and let your arms loosen around her. She doesn't turn around as you take a step back, and you respect it. You turn around, trying to hold back a sob, take a deep breath, start walking away from her, preparing to leave camp, and even though she’s also leaving with you, you know it won’t be _together_ with you.

 

xxx

 

They fuck it up once again, when will they ever _not_ fuck it up?

And oh, Raven, Raven, they’re tying her up and there’s blood on her arms and and for one moment of agony, you feel like life itself wraps its fingers around your lungs and _squeezes._ Lexa decides to kill her right-hand man and you wait, endless patience in your bones. Your daughter is so strong and so fierce in the midst of this war and all you can feel is some kind of desperate pride and exhaustion. Raven is still tied up, blood bleeding into the earth underneath her feet. And finally, you get to approach her and loosen the ties so carelessly tied around her wrists. You support her as she hobbles to the side of the centre of attention and you try to tend to her wounds. Her eyelids are heavy and she looks so tired, dark skin with a pale glow and eyes dark as the woods surrounding you. Gravity, heavy and magnificent, lives within those eyes.

 

xxx

 

You keep trying to support Clarke through the hell she manages to stumble upon each day, and every time you try is one more time she refuses your help. You keep thinking: _Abby, don’t worry, you’re her mother, she’s taking it all out on you, all the anger and frustration and sadness and you’re the one she’s taking it out on, you’re her_ safety _, just suck it up, Abby, stop, stop, stop_ \---

 “I didn’t know I’d lose my daughter over it.”

War, everywhere you look. Not even the gentle reassurance of Marcus Kane can break through to the insides of your body in which there’s so much damned pain. And then you’re arguing with Marcus and suddenly Clarke agrees with you? Marcus storms off because he wants torture, but you can’t take anymore blood shed, blood on the tips of your fingers.

 

xxx

 

You follow Clarke to Tondc, and the bomb goes off.

Everything feels numb, and you’re wallowing in dark, dark self-pity. Marcus is dying in the dust and you feel like you’re inhaling ashes and dust and air and death. And somehow they find you buried in the dust and you’re both _alive._

(Your lungs will feel like they’re filled with dust for a long, long time.)

Clarke leaves you in the post bomb ruins and sends you back to camp Jaha, and you don’t have it in you to dwell in any more self-pity so you decide to just suck it up and keep on breathing.

After so, so many disasters in so little time, you’re finally back, with time to tend to wounds and burns and get more than 2 hours of sleep at a time. You try to breathe slowly as you fall asleep, counting the minutes. There’s no dust around you but your lungs feel contaminated, Clarke is gone and you feel lonely again, and Marcus is alive, and he is some kind of companion in this, but it doesn’t really make you feel better.

 

xxx

 

You haven’t seen Raven, you didn’t have the energy or time to go to engineering, just needed a bath and to feel cool sheets against your skin.

When you finally make your way to engineering, hoping to maybe just look into her eyes and get a moment of peace, get that feeling when your spine suddenly straightens, remembering its own strength, yes you’re hoping maybe that feeling can make everything just a little bit better. You come to a sudden halt outside engineering because of the sounds of… Raven Reyes _moaning._ It’s deep and throaty and like nothing you’ve ever heard before.  
  
Wick. Raven. You feel yourself blush and promptly turn around, hurrying away before anyone sees you.

No shared moment of peace, no feeling of rest in your bones. No fleeting touch of lips against knuckles when no one else is there.

 

xxx

 

Two weeks after they’ve made it back to Camp Jaha, two weeks after that moment you were lying tied up on a table as someone drilled into your bones, and you jump out of sleep. You’ve been dreaming of drills and bones and blood. It’s a phantom memory caused by PTSD, you know this, you’re a doctor, but jumping out of sleep like this still feels like resurfacing from having been under the water for too long. You’re breathing heavily, gasping, sweat clinging to your skin. It’s dark and you’re in your own quarters but you quickly realise what actually woke you up. A tentative knock can be heard from the door. You immediately get up, fuck, not another emergency, not a new outbreak in this damned war, no, no, no. You open the door to the sight of a crying Raven. You should be surprised, should tell her that she shouldn’t be here in the middle night, should do so many, many things but… you only sigh loudly in exhaustion and relief. You can discern tears on her cheeks where she stands three feet away in the shadows. She’s trembling and biting her lip as you stare at each other in the complete silence of night.  
  
“Raven,” you try to say but your voice is hoarse from screaming in pain each night, so it cracks on the first syllable. Hearing her own name must affect Raven because her shivers suddenly become more violent. You still don’t really know what to do, you want to hug her, or _something_ , but her body has had to power through so much trauma and touch may no longer something easily accepted. As you stand in the shadows, eyes locked, your mind flashes back to what feels like a lifetime ago, warm eyes on one of the sublevels of the Ark where you spent nine days together. You remember her smirk and her burning warmth and how you both kind of just fell into each other’s orbits and how… easy it was.

You must have been lost in thought, because suddenly, without you having noticed, Raven has reached forward to tread her fingers together with yours. And the soft smile that spreads across your face cannot be stopped. You don’t say it, but the word beats in time with your heart: peace, peace, peace, peace—

Her smile turns into a smirk and you feel warm. 

She brings your intertwined hands to her lips, kisses your knuckles, not once, not twice, not thrice, but four times.

She’s holding your hand to her lips as she murmurs: “I need…” she doesn’t finish the sentence but closes her eyes and take a tiny step closer to you, lips still in contact with your knuckles. She inhales and says again, “I need—“

“A moment of peace,” you finish for her because that’s what you need too and what you always say but she frowns a little and shakes her head, voice becoming a whisper.

“No, Abby,” she says and her eyes open and they take your breath away as Raven takes you in, countenance serious and determined, “I need _you._ ”

You almost choke on the air because Raven has suddenly closed in on you and put her hands on your hips. She’s so close, so close, so close and you don’t know if she means what you think she means but your head is spinning too much, heart beating too fast and there are so many people to consider, Abby, Marcus, Wick, everyone, everyone, _Jake,_ all these people and Raven is so young and you’re afraid she doesn’t really know, not really. You’re afraid, but Raven’s eyes are so strong.

“Raven, this is… we can’t.”

But as you put your hands on hers, planted on your hips, you don’t remove them. Instead one of your hands stays settled on hers as the other hand travels up her arm, to settle… in her hair. Your head is still spinning and you think you’ve gone insane, but… you can feel yourself slowly give in to the feeling.

“Please, Abby,” Raven whispers and her eyes are focused on your lips and your entirely body is pulsing under her gaze, “I want to kiss you so badly.”

You stare at her as your breathing quickens, her face so incredibly close, only a few inches. Slowly, you nod your head once. And the relief in her eyes is so clear as a small smile forms on her lips, eyes darkening. She leans forward and your lips touch for the first time.

And gravity settles on your spine and pulls, and pulls, and pulls.

 

xxx

 

 


End file.
